


Touch Therapy

by Pollydoodles



Series: The Pizza Dog Chronicles [9]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-19 21:39:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5981763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pollydoodles/pseuds/Pollydoodles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy slipped out of the shower, pleasantly warm and feeling good. There was nothing like a hot shower at the end of the day to clean away the dust and dirt, and leave her feeling human again. For a lab assistant whose job was ostensibly to convert scribble into legible computer-archived notes for a scientist working in the theoretical arena, she got surprisingly messy on a regular basis. </p><p>She wrapped a towel around herself carefully, and rough-dried her dark hair, scrunching it and leaving it hanging loose around her shoulders. Bare feet padding softly on the tiles, she stepped out of the bathroom and into her bedroom. </p><p>The fading afternoon light lit up her room with a dusky orange glow and, crossing to the window, she smiled looking out over the city. Being so high up, it was … Calming. Life in the tower could get … Weird. Leaving aside the ever-present threat of invasion, which to be honest was the least of the potential issues; there was the Stark factor, the Banner possibility, as much as she hated to admit it there was also the Jane challenge. </p><p>And Bucky. There was always Bucky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touch Therapy

Darcy slipped out of the shower, pleasantly warm and feeling good. There was nothing like a hot shower at the end of the day to clean away the dust and dirt, and leave her feeling human again. For a lab assistant whose job was ostensibly to convert scribble into legible computer-archived notes for a scientist working in the theoretical arena, she got surprisingly messy on a regular basis. 

She wrapped a towel around herself carefully, and rough-dried her dark hair, scrunching it and leaving it hanging loose around her shoulders. Bare feet padding softly on the tiles, she stepped out of the bathroom and into her bedroom. 

The fading afternoon light lit up her room with a dusky orange glow and, crossing to the window, she smiled looking out over the city. Being so high up, it was … Calming. Life in the tower could get … Weird. Leaving aside the ever-present threat of invasion, which to be honest was the least of the potential issues; there was the Stark factor, the Banner possibility, as much as she hated to admit it there was also the Jane challenge. 

And Bucky. There was always Bucky. 

She tried to see it, she did. 

The wariness the others had around him, the hesitation, the constant flinch and tense when he moved too quickly for them. She knew all the things the Winter Soldier had done. She knew that he had murdered Tony’s parents, knew that he’d done so in cold blood and that he’d actually known Howard Stark before – before everything. She knew that he’d shot straight through Natasha to get to someone else, hadn’t even blinked before doing so. That he’d been hell-bent on killing Steve, and that Steve loved him so much that he’d been a fingertip’s width from letting the Soldier do it. 

But then there was Bucky. 

Bucky, who watched endless hours of TV on Netflix with her, head eventually dropping sleepily into her lap as she played idly with his hair. Bucky, who dogged her heels as she in turn followed Jane, wanting nothing more than just to not be alone again. Bucky, who appeared in her room sometimes as the night was beginning to die, eyes wide and muscles tense, saying nothing but needing everything. Bucky, who tucked his arm around her in the middle of the night and held onto to her as though she were the most important thing in his world, not even realising that he was doing so. Bucky who’d more or less adopted Barton’s dog, and had induced her to spend hours online with him, researching the best food, the most effective chew toys, the exact history of the Labrador in America.

That, she could not reconcile with the Soldier. 

Stepping back and collapsing on the bed, she pulled up her hairdryer and began to work her fingers through her wet hair, aiming the dryer carefully. She’d gotten halfway through before an inquisitive head poked itself around her bedroom door. Laughing, she patted the bed enthusiastically and encouraged him into the room proper. 

Lucky padded forward and plonked himself in front of her, panting heavily. Maybe it was a Lucky thing, maybe it was an every-dog thing, Darcy didn’t really know – she hadn’t had that much experience of dogs, however much she liked them – but Lucky liked the hairdryer. She could predict down to almost the nearest minute when he would turn up after she’d begun drying her hair. Sometimes he was panting hard, and she had to wonder how good his hearing was, when he’d clearly been some way away before racing to her.

Smiling, she aimed the dryer at the dog, and he immediately dropped to the floor and rolled on his back. If she didn’t know Barton so well, she’d think it was some trick, trained into the dog, but Hawkeye didn’t have the time or patience for that sort of thing. No, this was something that Lucky just enjoyed. 

He wriggled into the carpet, eyes closed in utter joy, as she drew the hairdryer over him. His golden fur, fluffy and long over his flanks, ruffled in the wind generated by the device. Lucky let out a low woof and Darcy giggled. “You ridiculous thing.” She said, fondly, and his tail thumped hard against the floor. 

Wherever Lucky went, his dark-haired human shadow was generally soon to follow, and today was no exception. 

Darcy was less than surprised to see Bucky’s curious blue eyes peer at her from the doorframe, still hesitant about barging into her room, despite the number of times he’d appeared and ended up curled into her bedspread, her fingers lightly stroking his forehead to try and lull him into a sleep he couldn’t find for himself, disturbed again by errant memories, recurring nightmares or just the fact that Steve wasn’t in the tower. 

“C’mon, Buck.” She said easily, and gestured for him to come in. It would have been easy for him to sprawl across the bed next to her, but instead he dropped to the floor alongside Lucky, and she directed the warm air at him instead. 

He jerked back in surprise as it hit his face, then, eyes scrunching together in confusion, he leaned towards the air stream and let it blow against his face. His shaggy dark hair danced around his shoulders and she could see a small smile edge its way cautiously across his lips as it did. 

“You like that, Buck?” 

Serious blue eyes looked up at her from the floor, and, after a moment, he nodded cautiously. 

“C’mere.” She said, and he leaned forward in response. Tangling a hand carefully in his hair, she could feel that he’d not washed it for a while. Tilting her head to one side, she could feel her heart squeezing uncomfortably against her ribs as the man leaned into her soft touch. It shouldn’t affect her so much, but it did – a sudden, hard hit against her senses, a need to take care of him. This must be how Steve feels all the time, she mused. 

“Hmmmm.” She breathed. “You need to wash this, Buckster.” He fixed her with a soft smile and she could feel the tug it had on her, deep inside, and tried to push it away. “Let me wash it?” 

She didn’t have to ask. Bucky would let her do anything she wanted to him, and it made her feel both special and awful. She’d read the Winter Soldier’s file, cover to cover and back again, almost unable to believe some of it. Bucky, their Bucky, her Bucky – although she’d never be able to say that out loud – had done some terrible, almost unforgivable things. But what they’d done to him in return … It didn’t bear thinking about. And to see his unfailing trust in her both stirred her and frightened her. She didn’t want responsibility for another person; no matter how much she wanted well for him. 

She didn’t want to be someone who was giving him orders he couldn’t help but obey. He’d been nothing but under orders for the best part of his long-life. The idea of making the wrong choice, the wrong decision, and him being hurt because of that … She felt, when she thought about it, that she was living her life alongside him under the swinging Sword of Damocles. 

Bucky stood up eagerly, wholly unware of her internal turmoil, and despite her racing mind the corners of her mouth tugged into an easy smile. It was always easy to smile at Bucky. He was earnest, and meant well, for all that he often missed the mark without even realising that there was a mark he could possibly miss. 

Darcy hopped to her feet also, then realised she was still only dressed in a towel. Bucky looked back at her expectantly, and she hated herself for the sudden swooping negative feeling low in her stomach that he didn’t even comprehend that she was practically half-naked, in her bedroom, on her bed, in front of him. 

Any other man would have noticed, maybe would have taken advantage of it, or at least made some kind of move, however small. But then, none of those men would have been Bucky. And, however much she wanted him to touch her, to run a finger down her bare arm just to feel her shudder underneath him, to trace the line of her lips and guide her to kiss along his clavicle lovingly and return the movement alongside her own pulsing throat, Bucky was not looking at her that way.

So she swallowed it down and smiled at him. 

“Buck, you gotta turn around okay?” She choked out, head still full of forbidden images that she could never share with him. Or anyone, really. Certainly no one she happened to share the tower with. 

He stared down at her, then obediently turned his back to her and stilled, the way she imagined he would have as a sniper during the War. Throwing him a quick glance to make sure he was still turned away from her, she slipped the towel from her body, letting it fall to the floor and pulled open her underwear drawer quickly. 

She hunted quickly, and in no way picked out a matching set that she happened to know both complemented her skin colour and pushed up her breasts in a way that nothing else she’d ever bought had quite managed. Having absolutely not done that, she threw on some cotton shorts and tugged a loose t-shirt over her head before turning back to Bucky. 

He remained facing away from her, and there was no indication he had shifted a single muscle whilst she had been changing. Darcy pointedly ignored the cold hard feeling that settled on her stomach as she glanced over his unmoved posture. She reached out a hand to him. 

“C’mon.”

Minutes later, she had him sat by the bath, head tilted gently back over it, massaging into his head and coaxing from him sleepy sounds of delight. She’d shyly helped him pull his shirt off, so as not to get it wet, and he sat reclined against the side of the bath in just his trousers. Darcy studiously ignored the curve of his exposed muscles and focused – more or less entirely – on the task at hand. 

She ran her hands through his wet hair and paused only to squeeze out more shampoo onto her fingertips. Having done so, she worked her fingers into his scalp, tenderly running her hands over his head and through his shaggy wet hair. 

He groaned, a low noise that she thought he probably didn’t realise he was making. She pressed on. His eyes were closed, but he rested his right hand against her knee as she leaned over him, his fingers rubbing small circles into her leg. Unconsciously mirroring her movements on his head, Darcy smiled to herself. 

Having worked both shampoo and then conditioner into his hair, she rinsed it through thoroughly and shook it out. She had to stop him from shaking his head like a dog, she’d been burned by that before – as had Steve. Darcy eventually had to beckon Bucky out of the bathroom, wrapping a clean towel around his shoulders and guiding him into a cross legged position at the foot of her bed. 

Lucky looked up guiltily from where he’d been lying spread-eagled across the bed, and Darcy shooed him off. He went, tail between his legs, to sit by the door. He watched them cautiously, trying to gauge if this was a bad dog situation, or just a temporary misdemeanour that would pass quickly. Finding no further scolding coming his way, he crept back slowly towards them, shuffling on his belly commando-style in case they noticed. 

Darcy noticed. “Silly mutt.” She said fondly, shaking her head and watching him sneak back towards them. 

Settling behind Bucky, leaning down from the edge of the bed, she drew her bare legs to rest either side of his body. They brushed lightly against his arms, tickled at the top by the soft towel she’d draped across his shoulders and at the bottom by the heat from his bare skin. 

Swallowing that feeling away as best she could, she ran her fingers through his hair first, smiling slowly at the low noises he made when she did so, his head starting to hang forward in pleasure. Then she massaged her fingers into his scalp, trying to tease his temples and other problem spots, trying to wipe away the nightmares that he occasionally still woke up with. 

He leaned back into her with a small moan, and Darcy faltered slightly in her ministrations as his head rolled back onto one of her knees and he rested more of his weight into her. She crumpled slightly, then, pushing at him gently and shuffling him forward, she slipped to the floor behind him and re-gained her position, leaning right back into him and propping herself against his solid bulk. 

Leaning to one side, she scrabbled for a moment, and finally managed to scoop back up the hairdryer. 

“Loud noise incoming.” She murmured into his ear before switching it on, having experienced that unexpected noises tended to startle Bucky – and the ensuing aftermath – too many times to want to have to call in the clean-up crew again. He stiffened slightly as it whirred into life, then relaxed back against her soothing fingers rubbing circles into his arm. 

Once she was sure he’d adjusted, she brought the dryer up to his head and began working through it slowly. She tangled her fingers through sections, angling the hair dryer carefully so as not to burn him. She thought it was probably an unfounded concern, given his situation, but it was too much of a second-nature process to try and protect him where she could. 

She had dried most of his shaggy dark mop when Steve walked in. He stuttered without actually managing to form any words, and a hot pink blush worked its way quickly over his face. Darcy frowned at his reaction, not understanding, then caught sight of herself and Bucky in the silver reflection of her wardrobe doors. Shorts having ridden up slightly with her legs curled loosely around Bucky’s sides and the rest of her mostly hidden by his bulk, she looked very much as though she were naked sat behind him. 

“No.” She said firmly, pointing a finger in his direction and pushing against Bucky to shuffle forward. Having made space for her, she unfolded and stood up, gesturing to her rumpled clothing wordlessly. Steve, if anything, looked more embarrassed at that. 

“Steve,” the blond man didn’t have a lot of time to dwell on it before Bucky was in his face, grinning widely. “Look.” He pulled at his hair, then tangled Steve’s hand in his own and dragged it up to get Steve touching the loose waves. 

“Hmmm, very nice,” Steve threw a grin over to Darcy, who was watching on, arms folded loosely around herself. He made a show of pulling Bucky’s head down and inspecting his hair more closely. “Looking good, Buck. You managed to wrangle your own personal stylist, huh?”

Bucky’s head shot back up and the look of confusion on his face was priceless. Darcy bit her lip to keep from laughing out loud at how similar he looked to Lucky when a high pitched noise filtered through to him. 

Steve adjusted his internal language dial back a few decades, and tried again. “Looks swell, Buck. Real dapper.”

The other man nodded happily, then turned to Darcy. “Now Steve?”

She caught Steve’s eye before answering him, giving him a look to see his reaction to that. He was shaking his head slightly, and she nodded her head in return, eyes sparkling at him mischievously. He mouthed at her from behind Bucky, gesturing no in her direction. 

“You know what, Buck? I think Steve would really like that, but you should help and show him what we did for you.” Steve threw her a pained look that let her know that, at some point, life was going to get hard for her. Bucky and water was usually a pretty deadly mix. She made a mental note to enlist Barton as backup. 

Half an hour later, as Bucky held Steve’s chest down in the bath and enthusiastically doused his entire head with water rather than just his hair, Darcy laughing hard as she scrambled around Bucky and tried to reach the lever to shut it off – Bucky’d missed the first crucial step of shirt removal, so Steve’s t-shirt was soaked through – he decided it was worth it not to miss the pair of them like this. 

Bucky, determined and concentrating hard, Darcy almost doubled up with laughter and now hanging over Bucky’s back to reach across the bath. Anyone with eyes could see that Bucky adored Darcy, and indeed he’d heard it even from people who’d never seen them together, so accepted was it in the tower that Bucky would eventually be found trailing after her. 

But Steve hadn’t missed the look on Darcy’s face sometimes, when she thought no one else was looking. 

The soft look in her eyes as she glanced over at his friend, as though she were committing him to memory in that moment. The five second instant panic that flashed through her body when she looked up from tins of beans in the grocery store and couldn’t see him, and the tangible relief moments later when he appeared with something he’d found and decided was the only thing he could ever possibly want to eat again. 

Darcy might just need Bucky as much as Bucky needed her.


End file.
